Friday 19 December 2003
Around 8 30, we went past the Dungun Technical school near the forest reserve to Cukai. It is a small reserve, going towards the sea and up the hill and has some interesting sedimentary layers where the banks were cut to make the road straighter; prior to that, some years ago, it was a winding affair. Twenty minutes later, we went over the Paka estuary bridge, with the trees to the right, and the sandbank towards the sea, a scene that I always enjoy. A few minutes down the solitary road of the town, we came by Paka power station, and the petrochemical complex of Kerteh, with ethylene and polyethylene plant, MOX, with the storage tanks and piping and the oil and gas terminals. It is about twenty minutes from the south side of Kerteh to Cukai. Before that is the industrial area with the Tioxide plant that produces paper whitening material, and the Perwaja steel plant. The old road used to run right past the place. At the rear is Kemaman port.
We went through Cukai, as usual without stopping; there is little to see here, and it is not a prettiest place. Then, it takes an hour to Kuantan, passing Cherating, the nearest thing to a hippy place here on the east coast. In Kuantan, we stopped first at a hawker stall where Ai Hwa, complaining of having gastric pains, sensibly ordered spicy soup with oysters. The other two had kong low mee, ie noodles. I, not appreciating the décor of the place and getting depressed, had a small can of Guinness. This made me feel better. Then we went to the Hugo shopping mall that I have mentioned to you before; it was crowded, raucous, and not over-clean. However, it is the highlight, for the colourful Dungun folk, of their escape to the big world of a proper town. We checked the cinema, but there was nothing until early afternoon. We bought the children an ice cream, and picked up some potatoes, garlic, and a few other things. I was unable to find Lego, which was annoying, as I wanted to get some for the children. We went across the road to a four or five * hotel, and wandered through it.
We then went around Kuantan by car, the streets crowded as it was now lunchtime, and she took a number of wrong turnings, meaning we went down the same route a number of times. On the way to the apartment, we stopped in a small supermarket for some crisps and biscuits, the children doing the shopping, choosing what they wanted, and paying for it, with my money. Their enthusiasm was so marked that Harri went racing out of the place, forgetting about me.
Then we went up the hill to the resort complex, overlooking the South China Sea and the bay of Kuantan. It is a fine panorama. There is thick forest around one, and a good breeze. We went to the open-air French restaurant, with nice wooden tables and chairs, a pretty waitress, fans, and almost no one, except us. There were place mats, mats for the water glasses, napkins, and an ambience that was quite relaxing.
Right, now for the catch; it had most un-French like food. The dishes were continental, but expensive, so the three of us had the chicken burger with very hard chips, the burger having the flattened appearance of being run over by a car. Ai Hwa had the set meal for the day, fruit punch, mushroom soup, grilled tuna with rice, and ice cream to finish. That looked much better. There was not much change from 50 ringgit. However, the water was good, and I mentioned the view before.
Then, Ai Hwa went off to the office, whilst the children went to the play area. I wandered around, and then went to see them.
‘We’re commandos, this is our assault course’.
I said something like, 'okay, Captain, carry on’. Harri shouted quietly to Rhiannon, ‘the General’s here’.
Rhiannon wanted to show me the helicopter-landing zone. I assumed it was a real one; it is the kind of place that you could well imagine having one. No, a flat area of grass it was. Then, they showed me the rifle range ie the car wash place, where the end wall reverberates when you stamp of the tarmac, rather like the sound of a gun. Then we watched and shouted to the monkeys, who ignored us, preferring their lunch of tropical foliage. After some time, we were on our way back to Dungun, with a brief stop in Cukai to try to get Lego, but nothing there either, or it was a horrendous price, I’m not sure now... We went this time on the road past the port and Perwaja steel mill, before going past my old employer, Tioxide.
It began to rain near Paka.
I thought that we had a pleasant day out; there was plenty to talk to the children about, and we had seen and done quite a bit.
